


Yes

by Dragonflies_and_Katydids



Series: Off Label [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, M/M, Self-Acceptance, Self-Hatred, getting there anyway, something that's almost kink negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:55:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonflies_and_Katydids/pseuds/Dragonflies_and_Katydids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair and Zevran talk about what happened in "Off Label", after a week of Alistair pretending it didn't happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yes

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago and posted it on Tumblr, and just now realized I never posted it here. I was looking through the series to put together a timeline (because this whole thing is getting convoluted), and was scratching my head. "Where's that other thing I wrote for this? You know, the thing where they actually have a real conversation. I know I wrote it..."
> 
> So here! Have an extra dose of angst tonight!

At least it's not the fight that does it.

Hands shaking, Alistair scrubs the blood from his sword and tries to ignore the heat starting to burn under his skin, the same heat he feels after every fight. It's not the fight itself that arouses him--mostly what he feels then is anger and just enough fear to keep him alive--but where the others grow calm as the fight recedes into memory, Alistair finds himself tense for an entirely different reason. He should be used to it by now, but every time, the shame burns almost as hot as the lust.

What sort of man thinks of stroking himself while he's still bloody and gasping from a pitched battle with a score of darkspawn?

His sword clean at last, Alistair slams it back into its sheath with too much force. "I'll be back," he says, generally in Mahariel's direction. There are no more darkspawn nearby, and other predators won't venture back into the area for a while. He's safe enough, at least for now.

"Don't go too far," Mahariel says.

"I'll see you back at camp," he says, in an almost normal tone. By the sympathetic look she gives him, she's drawn entirely the wrong conclusion about why he wants to be alone, but he's in no hurry to correct her. Far better that she think him a sheltered chantry boy than that she know the truth.

The surrounding forest is unnaturally quiet, the smaller animals still in hiding after the darkspawn and the fight, and the sound of the others talking carries for a long way. Alistair walks until his footsteps and the jingle of his armor are the only sounds he can hear, then walks a little farther, trying to get his body under control.

He's no more successful than he's been at any other point in his life, and finally he gives up, looking around for a place to rest. With his armor on, there aren't many ways he can sit without choking himself, but reclining against a fallen tree is almost comfortable. He takes off his helmet and lets his head fall back, the bark catching against his hair as he stares up at the patches of blue sky peeking between the leaves.

It really is a beautiful day: late afternoon sunlight pours down through the trees, turning everything green and gold. If he didn't currently feel like he was barely one step up from the darkspawn he just killed, maybe he could even enjoy it.

Instead, his cock is hard and aching, demanding more attention rather than less, and eventually he gives up, loosening his armor until he can reach into his trousers and touch himself. He strokes hard, trying to get it over with as fast as possible, hating himself even as his cock pulses.

It's unsatisfying to say the least, and Alistair keeps his eyes closed after he's done, trying not to hate Zevran. A few weeks ago, he wouldn't have found that climax lacking; it's not terribly different from any other time he's stroked himself. The problem is that now he has something else to compare it to; now he knows what it's like to not hate himself for a little while.

He's avoided Zevran as much as possible since that afternoon, ashamed of what he said and did, and even more ashamed that he wants to say and do it all again. Not quite as bad as being aroused after a fight, but still hardly exemplary to get so hard so fast merely because he was pinning Zevran down. Eyes still closed, he wipes his hand on the ground, cleaning it off against the leaves and dirt, and lets the self-loathing roll over him as his cock begins to harden just at the memory of Zevran fighting against him.

"Do you perhaps require assistance?" Zevran asks, and even his tone smirks.

Alistair bolts to his feet, sword half drawn before logic overtakes panic. "What do you want?" he barks, anger at himself making him sharp with Zevran.

"What do _I_ want?" Zevran arches one eyebrow and smiles slowly. "Why, to help you with a little problem you seem to have." He lowers his eyes pointedly. "Or not so little, in truth."

"Maker save me," Alistair breathes. He laces up his trousers with shaking hands, fighting for control. How much temptation will he be expected to resist? "Leave me alone."

"If that's truly what you wish," Zevran says, his tone more serious than usual.

"I wish," Alistair says without looking at him.

There's a long silence, and Alistair finally raises his head, hoping that Zevran will have taken himself off as silently as he arrived. No such luck: he's being studied curiously, and Zevran clearly is not on his way anywhere.

"Do you wish?" Zevran asks. "And what if I said that I wished to suck your cock while you forced me to take it?"

Alistair grabs two fistfuls of his hair and growls. "Stop! Please, just stop."

To his surprise, Zevran dips his head in a shallow bow. "My apologies. It was never my intent to upset you, but I thought we had discussed this already. If your concern is for me, it should not be."

"I don't want to hurt you!"

"Even if I want you to?"

"That isn't how it works! Nobody wants that!" He manages to bite his tongue on, "I'm not that lucky." Almost as soon as he crawled out of the tent after the first--and last--time, the guilt had been working on him. No matter what Zevran had said, it was too much to believe when not in the heat of the moment.

Zevran is still giving him that same thoughtful look. "If you wish me to go, I will." Alistair opens his mouth, but shuts it again when Zevran holds up a finger. "However, if you will permit it, I would like to discuss several things with you first."

"Discuss?" Alistair asks skeptically.

"Discuss," Zevran says firmly. One corner of his mouth curls, but it's not suggestive. "My word is possibly a little suspect, but I give it for what it's worth. I wish to discuss a small handful of things, and then if you still wish me to go, I will do so."

Somewhat against his own better judgment, Alistair nods. "All right."

"Thank you," Zevran says, as graciously as if Alistair has given him a gift. He gestures at the fallen tree Alistair was leaning against. "May I sit?"

"Can I stop you?"

"Yes," Zevran says simply, and Alistair blinks at him. "If you wish me to remain at a distance, I will."

It's hard to know what to make of a serious Zevran, when he's normally so extravagant and grandiose. "All right," Alistair says again, more hesitantly than last time.

"Thank you," Zevran repeats in his turn. He sits cross-legged on top of the fallen trunk, which really shouldn't be wide enough for that, except somehow, he makes it work.

He also keeps his distance: there's a good body-length of space between them, and Zevran shows no inclination to narrow that gap as he talks. "We spoke of this a little before, but I think perhaps you have decided that you know better than I do what I like and what I do not."

"What?" Alistair gapes at him. That certainly wasn't the direction he expected this conversation to go. "No I don't!"

Zevran makes a doubtful noise, and if his face wasn't so completely devoid of humor, Alistair would think this all some kind of strange joke. "Then I am not sure what other conclusion to draw," Zevran says. "I have said that everything we did, I wanted and enjoyed, and yet you avoid me, and look at me like a sinner gone to confess to some Chantry mother."

Alistair's mouth works, but he can't seem to make a sound, much less a word.

"So I must assume that one of three things has happened," Zevran goes on. "Perhaps your own tastes have changed, and the game we played is no longer to your liking." He arches an eyebrow in Alistair's direction, pausing for a moment to give him a chance to speak. When Alistair doesn't, he continues, "Or perhaps you are one of those people who crave the new and different, and do not wish to play twice with the same person."

"No!" Alistair blurts out, and why can he find words to reject that, when he should be vehemently agreeing with the first of Zevran's conclusions?

Zevran studies him again, still thoughtful. "You needn't protest that on my behalf. I have known such men and women in the past, and I will take no offense if you simply are no longer interested in me."

He looks sincere, which is as baffling as the rest of this conversation put together. Alistair's experience--outside his own imagination--might be limited to observing others, but he doesn't think he's ever seen anyone who didn't take offense when a lover looked elsewhere.

"So if both myself and the game are still to your liking," Zevran says, when Alistair remains silent, "then I can only conclude that you have decided to ignore the things I said to you before."

Alistair presses the heels of his palms to his eyes so he doesn't have to meet that steady gaze. He wants the Zevran who teases him mercilessly, because that's the Zevran he knows how to handle. "Haven't you ever heard people say that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is?"

That gets a laugh. "Am I too good to be true, then?"

Maybe he doesn't want teasing Zevran back after all. "Not like that," Alistair says. His face is scarlet, but he manages to put some force behind the words. As much as he can while still hiding behind his hands. "I just...I know you think I don't know anything, but I've watched other people my whole life, and I've never seen anyone who liked the...things that I like."

"Even though I have said that I do?"

"You lie as easily as breathing," Alistair says. It's more harsh than he meant to be, but Zevran is beginning to annoy him.

If the words bother Zevran, there's no sign of it in his tone. "True enough, but not in this." He makes a thoughtful noise. "Have you considered that others might hide their preferences, much as you do?"

"Yes," Alistair says, exasperated. "But I lived in a dormitory full of templar recruits, remember? They talk about _everything_."

"Everything they know about," Zevran says, "and I will tell you, my friend, that a fifteen-year-old boy does not know nearly so much as he thinks he knows, and not even a tenth as much as he wishes his fellows to think he knows."

It's Alistair's turn to laugh, just a quick snort before he can stop it. "I know."

"Then why do you assume that because you never heard of it, it does not exist?"

"I kept waiting for any kind of hint," Alistair says, and the words come out plaintive. He winces and adjusts his tone to something a little less revealing. "No one ever said anything that even implied there might be people like me."

"Or perhaps, not like you, but with...mmmm...complementary interests?"

"Something like that," Alistair mutters.

The pause that follows goes on for so long that Alistair finally lowers his hands. Zevran leans forward and plants his hands on his knees, watching him with unnerving intensity. "If you think my words were lies, then surely you could tell that I enjoyed what we did?"

Alistair almost covers his face again and barely forces himself not to. "A body is...you can make them do things..." He's embarrassed again, flailing for the right words. "Just because your body reacts doesn't mean you liked it!"

Zevran's head cocks to one side, almost surprised, and it's the most authentic reaction Alistair has ever seen from him. "This is true," Zevran says. Now he's studying Alistair as if in anticipation of some startling new trick. "However. You have a choice. This game, it is one I have played before, with many others, and I can teach you how it might be played safely. I have told you that I enjoyed it. I have shown you that I enjoyed it. You must decide whether you will trust me, or not."

"Trust a Crow?"

"Why not?" Zevran says with a shrug. "You trust me to guard your back, at least until the archdemon is defeated. Is this secret more precious to you than your life?"

Alistair swallows a "yes," but by the look on Zevran's face, he might as well not have bothered.

Zevran opens his hands in surrender and unfolds himself from his place on the log. "Then I will leave you in peace." He's smiling as he bows, and it should be mocking, but it isn't. "For whatever my word is worth to you, I promise I will not mention this again."

He makes it three steps before Alistair finds his voice. "Wait!"

Zevran stops and half turns, his eyes serious once more. "Yes?"

There's a long moment where Alistair's throat squeezes too tightly for words to escape. "You said...you said it could be done...safely."

"It can." Zevran smiles briefly. "I was perhaps not a good teacher, last time."

"You could...teach me now."

"I could," Zevran says. "If that is what you wish."

Alistair stares mutely back at him, willing Zevran to read the answer on his face.

"No," Zevran says softly. "In this, at least, I must hear you say it. There can be no misunderstanding, not here. Do you wish me to teach you?"

There's an agonizing moment where Alistair doesn’t think he's actually going to be able to say it. Then he takes a deep breath in through his nose, the way he does before a fight, and forces the word out. "Yes."


End file.
